Unable to log into Admin Account

[Andrew]

Hello,

I have a huge problem

I have renamed the NTUSER files for the Admin account, in
hopes that windows would create the new files on reboot,
and I can delete the old ones, which swelled up to 10megs.

When I rebooted, I attempted to log in with the usual
user name and pass for the Admin account, which the
system accepted but displayed a Warning box upon "Loading
your settings..." which says "Unable to locate
credentials for the account. But will log you in with
system default." Or something very close to it in
meaning. It then logged me in with Admin.COMPUTERNAME.
I immediately renamed the ntuser.dat files back to the
proper names (they remained in the Documents And
Settings\Amdin directory) and rebooted. Did not work.
Still kept bumping me to a default Admin.COMPUTERNAME
account.

I have 10gigs of somewhat important "green" files on the
Admin account, and since they are green,
Admin.COMPUTERNAME can
not access them. Access Denied, of course. Can not copy
the files, read them, open them...nothing.

Feel free to email me at (e-mail address removed) if you think
you have a solution to this seemingly dead-end problem.

thanks to all concerned...

Andrew

P.S. In short, the system keeps creating the Admin.Box
account, even though I log in under Amdin name and
correct pass. (dup post)

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP Windows Shell/User\)]

Never post your e-mail address in public groups. Second, most people will
not send you an e-mail response as they cannot be sure you are not a spammer
attempting to harvest active e-mail addresses.

That said, you are on the right track to resolving the issue, I assume you
wanted to copy your data to be used in a new user account to replace the
current corrupted account. You can gain access to your files by taking
ownership of them as follows:
Note, file ownership and permissions supersede administrator rights. How
you resolve it depends upon which version of XP you are running.

XP-Home

Unfortunately, XP Home using NTFS is essentially hard wired for "Simple File
Sharing" at system level.

However, you can set XP Home permissions in Safe Mode. Reboot, and start
hitting F8, a menu should eventually appear and one of the
options is Safe Mode. Select it. Note, it will ask for the administrator's
password. This is not your administrator account, rather it is the
machine's administrator account for which users are asked to create a
password during setup.

If you created no such password, when requested, leave blank and press
enter.

Open Explorer, go to Tools and Folder Options, on the view tab, scroll to
the bottom of the list, if it shows "Enable Simple File Sharing" deselect it
and click apply and ok. If it shows nothing or won't let you make a change,
move on to the next step.

Navigate to the files, right click, select properties, go to the Security
tab, click advanced, go to the Owner tab and select the user that was logged
on when you were refused permission to access the files. Click apply and
ok. Close the properties box, reopen it, click add and type in the name of
the user you just enabled. If you wish to set ownership for everything in
the folder, at the bottom of the Owner tab is the following selection:
"Replace owner on subcontainers and objects," select it as well.

Once complete, you should be able to do what you wish with these files when
you log back on as that user.

XP-Pro

If you have XP Pro, temporarily change the limited account to
administrative. First, go to Windows Explorer, go to Tools, select Folder
Options, go to the View tab and be sure "Use Simple File Sharing" is not
selected. If it is, deselect it and click apply and ok.

If you wish everything in a specific folder to be accessible to a user,
right click the folder, select properties, go to the Security tab, click
Advanced, go to the Owner tab,
select the user you wish to have access, at the bottom of the box, you
should see a check box for "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects,"
place a check in the box and click apply and ok.

The user should now be able to perform necessary functions on files in the
folder even as a limited account. If not, make it an admin account again,
right click the folder, select Properties, go to the Security tab and be
sure the user is listed in the user list. If not, click add and type the
user name in the appropriate box, be sure the user has all the necessary
permissions checked in the permission list below the user list, click apply
and ok.

That should do it and allow whatever access you desire for that folder even
in a limited account.